The Lying Season (Seasons #1) - K.A. Linde Page 0,10

a year?”

I blushed. “No. That’s not what I’m saying. I just…well, I had an arrangement.”

“With whom?”

English’s eyes rounded. “Oh my god, yes, tell us who.”

“Um…Kurt Mitchell.”

“No!” Katherine gasped.

English and Whitley focused intently on me now.

“Who is Kurt Mitchell?” Whitley asked.

“A guy who got kicked out of our prep school freshman year and bounced around European boarding schools. He’s like the Upper East Side fuckup. I didn’t even know he was in the city,” Katherine said. “How did that happen? And how the hell did you keep it from me?”

“My mother,” I admitted, ashamed. “She set us up when he came back.”

“You didn’t!” English gasped.

“It was never serious.”

“And when did it end?” Katherine asked.

I shrugged. “A few months ago.”

“So, you do need to get laid,” Whitley chimed in. “A few months is a lifetime.”

English turned back to face the crowd in front of us. Even on a Wednesday night, the place was packed. “Well,” she mused, “we should look at our options.”

Whitley laughed and shook her head. “I’ll go scope them out from the floor.”

Then she vanished into the crowd as quickly as she had come.

“Are we ever going to see her again?” I asked.

English shook her head. “It’s probably fifty-fifty with Whit.”

Katherine asked Keri to make us a round of drinks. “You know, I think she’s toned down some.”

Our eyes met, and we both burst into laughter. Because this was toned-down Whitley, and that was pretty terrifying.

I took a dirty martini from Keri and knew this was a bad idea. But what the hell? I was with my girls.

“I swear, in my next life, I just want half of her confidence,” English said.

“Whatever. You’re insanely confident,” I said.

She pointed at a guy standing at a high-top table nearby. “Him?” she asked.

I shook my head, taking a long sip of my drink. “I’m definitely tipsy, but I’m still firmly in the I don’t need dick to feel better about Sam category.”

“The fact that you just said that proves otherwise,” Katherine said.

“Both of you are married,” I said, gesturing between my two closest girlfriends. “You seem to be doing just fine. But neither of you found your significant other because of a one-night stand.”

Katherine’s eyebrows rose, saying everything that I’d left out of the conversation. She and Camden had an arrangement. She got access to the considerable Percy hotel fortune, and he got…her. I was still unclear if that just meant sex or what. She’d been totally weird about it all since the honeymoon. It used to be clear that she hated Camden with a fiery vengeance and was only doing this by the contract, but now, I didn’t know.

“So, okay,” English said, “I didn’t meet Josh in a club, it was a film party at the Beverly Hills Hotel.” I rolled my eyes. “But we slept together on the first date. Does that count?”

“Nope.”

“God, Josh Hutch. He’s so…Hollywood,” Katherine said with mild disdain. “But damn, does he have a rocking body, and he’s a great actor.”

“Yeah, I locked that down quick,” English said. She pointed out another guy, dancing in the middle of the room.

He was in a business suit, and his hips swayed to the beat.

I shook my head again.

“Are you going to disagree with all of them?” English asked.

“I think we should just stick her out in the middle of the room and let the guys flock to her,” Katherine said. She twirled my red hair around her finger. “Guys go crazy for redheads.”

“That’s a big no,” I said. I polished off my drink and reached for another one from Keri.

English grinned. “This is way more enjoyable than work. If I have to deal with another movie star throwing up in a limo or a rockstar getting caught with a groupie or have to try to calm down another irate wife, I might quit.”

“Is it that bad?” I asked, leaning forward and nearly falling over. “I thought you loved it.”

“I do,” she said, blowing out a breath. “I really love the PR part. Working for Poise PR is like the best thing that could have happened. And I don’t even mind fixing things. It’s just, sometimes, I wonder if I’m fixing the right things, you know?”

I blinked back the alcohol. “I think I’m too drunk to know.”

“Well, I get it,” Katherine said. “Everyone thinks it’s easy to be me, to work as a socialite. But it’s a literal job to keep my place in this world. And sometimes, I just want to fucking stop.” She shrugged one petite shoulder